In current wireless communication system, in order to further improve network capacity, miniaturization of base stations and intensity of network nodes has become an inevitable choice. However, the intensity of network nodes is bound to bring mutual interference problems, and strong interference between nodes can greatly affect system performance.
In order to solve the interference problem among low power nodes, 3GPP (the 3rd Generation Partnership Project) has done a lot of standardization work. In R10/11 stage, for a scene where macro base stations and base stations with low power are working in the same frequency, an ABS (Almost Blank Sub-frame) method is introduced. Interference sources can configure ABS on certain sub-frames, and interfered nodes can schedule users that in its services and are seriously disturbed on sub-frames where ABS is configured by the interference sources. In the current R12 stage, a more intensive small cell (a low-power wireless access node, and can be understood as a micro-cell base station) deployment scenario is considered, and an on/off (in other words, switching) method of the small cell is introduced. Some small cells can be open or closed according to business changes or interference changes. This prevents interference among small cells, and meanwhile, improves the energy-efficient of the base station.
Currently, the energy saving method of the base station is time consuming, and it is unable to meet the needs of a scene of intensive small cell deployment. In R12 standardization discussion, it has been determined to introduce a concept of shorter on/off time. To achieve higher system performance, state switching time of small cells should be as short as possible, so as to improve spectral efficiency. Early in the discussion, a rapid on/off method of small cells has been proven to achieve optimum system performance; however, rapid on/off of small cells will affect the measurement and other acts of a terminal. After state information of a small cell (that is, the small cell is currently in “on” or “off” state) is known, the terminal further needs to know duration information of the current state of that small cell.
Thus, how to make the terminal know the duration of the rapid on/off state of a micro-cell base station becomes a technical problem to be solved.